Alito Calmly Turns Aside Heated Questioning

WASHINGTON - In responding to questions about his involvement with a conservative student group at Princeton University, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito calmly deflected Democratic efforts to block his confirmation - but not before the character attack triggered an open feud among members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and drove the veteran judge's wife from the hearing room in tears.

Democrats who were unable to ruffle the 55-year-old appeals court judge on Tuesday, the first day of questioning, tried again yesterday by zeroing in on his association with Concerned Alumni of Princeton. They said his admission of membership in the group on a 1985 application for a job in the Reagan administration raised questions about whether he agreed with members who complained about the university's admission of women and minorities.

Leading the charge was Senator Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who helped thwart the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 and who nearly blocked the nomination of Justice Thomas in 1991. Unlike at the Bork hearings, however, Mr. Kennedy did not have the sympathy of Senator Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania, who voted against that nominee and now chairs the Judiciary Committee.

In a heated morning exchange between the two Judiciary Committee veterans, Mr. Kennedy asked Mr. Specter to order an executive session in which the committee would vote for the release of documents relating to CAP. He said he sent a letter to Mr. Specter last month requesting the documents from the Library of Congress and received no response. Mr. Specter said he did not see the letter.

"Well, we'll consider that, Senator Kennedy," Mr. Specter said. "There are many, many requests which are coming to me from many quarters. And, quite candidly, I view the request - if it's really a matter of importance, you and I see each other all the time and you have never mentioned it to me."

When Mr. Kennedy repeated that Mr. Specter had seen the letter, Mr. Specter bristled, angrily telling the Democrat that he had not. Mr. Kennedy then renewed his request for an executive session and said if Mr. Specter denied it, he would appeal the decision. At that, Mr. Specter said he took offense at being told he had received something he had not. He denied Mr. Kennedy's request, slammed down his gavel, and tossed it across the dais.

"We're going to move on now," he said sharply.

The morning drama between Messrs. Specter and Kennedy bore fleeting similarity to the fevered hearings of Mr. Bork and Justice Thomas. Yet Judge Alito's calm demeanor through this and several other attempts to question his ethics and to draw him out on whether the Constitution protects a right to abortion kept the hearing at a simmer. Justice Thomas, by contrast, delivered an impassioned self-defense following allegations during his hearing that he had sexually harassed a female subordinate, Anita Hill. Mr. Specter voted to confirm Justice Thomas.

Judge Alito's wife, Martha, was less composed than her husband. During comments from Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, in which he chided Democrats for tarring Judge Alito over his association with Concerned Alumni of Princeton, Judge Alito's sister could be seen consoling Mrs. Alito. When Mr. Graham referred to the way Judge Alito and his wife had raised their family, Mrs. Alito reached into her purse for a tissue.

"You know why I believe you when you say that you disavow those quotes," Mr. Graham said, referring to Judge Alito's earlier renunciation of inflammatory comments in a CAP magazine. "Because of the way you have lived your life and the way you and your wife are raising your children. Let me tell you this: Guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you're sitting."

Soon after this comment, Mrs. Alito rushed from her seat and left the hearing room in tears. She returned more than an hour later, shortly before the committee broke for the evening.

Senator Schumer, a Democrat of New York, joined Mr. Kennedy in pressing Judge Alito about association with CAP. He repeatedly asked Judge Alito soon after Mrs. Alito left the hearing why he "plucked" CAP from among other organizations he belonged to at the time he filled out the 1985 job application. Judge Alito responded that he likely mentioned it because the job was a political appointment.

When Mr. Schumer quoted inflammatory statements from the CAP magazine, Judge Alito renounced them, saying he would not have associated himself with the group if he had known what some of its members had written about women and minorities. Asked what he thought about Mrs. Alito's breakdown, Mr. Schumer told Fox News, "Well, I don't know anything about that. You have to ask the questions that have to be asked."

Senator Hatch, a Republican of Utah, described Mr. Kennedy's questioning about CAP as "below the belt." But, talking later about Mr. Kennedy with The New York Sun, Mr. Hatch said: "He's the leader of the liberals. You just expect it from him. That's all."

Republican activists saw Mrs. Alito's breakdown as potentially helpful to the cause. Soon after news of it began to circulate, a Republican public relations firm sent a note to reporters saying a former clerk for Judge Alito, Gary Rubman, witnessed "this development" and would be available for interviews.